what to do

[donkey]

I have no decent garden supplier's nearby so have started looking in other places for soil additives and found that my local builders merchants have very fine granite flakes really cheap but they cannot gaurantee them lime free can i wash any lime out by putting a hose into the bag and flushing it through ? or can anyone suggest some other way of getting cheap drainage material other than gardening suppliers.

 

[rockm]

Some of us in the US use crushed granite that is sold to poultry farms as grit for chickens and turkeys. We buy it from local farm feed stores. It's pretty cheap.

You might be able to find similar crushed granite or flint (don't use crushed oyster shells--which is also used for poultry grit). Granite and flint are inert and will not leach lime into the soil...

Additionally, swimming pool filter sand is also used over here. It is coarse grained crushed quartz. It works very well in mixes too.

 

[Bill S]

DOn, what rockm said, and for the question, no the lime I would guess would be in the form of limestone, don't think that will disolve and wash away as easy as wash it with a hose.

No sure of your situation, but you might try Kaisen Bonsai - http://www.kaizenbonsai.com not so far from home I think.